A little context would be fair. This was printed during Marvel's "Assistant Editor Month," the gag being that all the regular editors were out of town. The idea was that the inmates were running the asylum, so each comic that month had something wacky going on. This was the joke in Alpha Flight that month.

Yes, I believe I made a reference to it in one of the mouseover jokes. I was just being cheeky.

Of course, it doesn't change the fact that other issues of Alpha Flight in Byrne's run repurposed the art from their first appearance in Uncanny X-Men, or recapped the first year using much the same trick in #13.